“It perhaps comes down to us locating ourselves in an inconceivably vast universe on one hand, and in our own complicated lives as well.”
Katherine Harmon

Cartography, or mapmaking, has been an integral part of the human history for thousands of years. From cave paintings to ancient maps of Babylon, Greece, and Asia, through the Age of Exploration, and on into the 21st century, people have created and used maps as essential tools to help them define, explain, and navigate their way through the world.

Drawn in England in about 1290 Mappa Mundi (“map of the world”) is the only complete wall map of Earth to have survived from the Middle Ages.

The world is depicted as round and flat. It’s populated with such diverse creatures as Adam and Eve, Noah and his beasts, Emperor Caesar Augustus, a man riding a very unrealistic crocodile, and an imaginary being called a Sciapod who shelters himself from the burning sun with one huge foot. Mythological beasts jostle for space. The 12 winds are named and represented by dragons and grotesque squatting figures.

East, not north, is at the map’s top. Jerusalem is the center of the world. Countries and oceans are squeezed and stretched to fit into the map’s circle. Short descriptions offer such wisdom as, “Here are strong and fierce camels. (From A Medieval Look at Time and Place)

Fast forward to the twenty first century and Katherine Harmon took an inventive approach to mapping. Her book, You Are Here  highlights that maps need not just show continents and oceans: there are maps to heaven and hell; to happiness and despair; maps of moods, matrimony, and mythological places. There are maps to popular culture, from Gulliver’s Island to Gilligan’s Island. There are speculative maps of the world before it was known, and maps to secret places known only to the mapmaker.

Think of the potential of a collective of dogs sniff mapping the globe! It would offer another perspective to the stunning images, taken from space of our home planet.

Jesse, an 8 year old Pomeranian X is certainly up for the challenge. This photo was taken at a parkland area in Evatt ACT. A beautiful area with lots of trees, grass, birds and a creek, it is a place Jesse and her human companion regularly walk.